Bronwen Dickey discusses Pit Bull: The Battle over an American Icon, her examination of one of the most feared dog breeds, how the media changes perceptions, and what Eliza Doolittle might have to say about this.

If you’ve never heard of Whit Taylor, then now is the perfect time to discover her. Ghost (2015) is her understated masterpiece, self-published just months ago. As I began reading the book, I thought I was in for a nice little story about a young woman who wanted to meet her idols—Charles Darwin, Joseph Campbell et. al. […]

Author Benjamin Parzybok talks about his new novel, Sherwood Nation, climate fiction, the difference between post-collapse and post-apocalyptic, and how novels can predict the future if they try hard enough (and get lucky).

Standing for reason. Touching everyone all the time always. Twitter: not a great contribution to the historical record. Will technology put an end to disability? A discussion with Slate. How the Internet’s libertarian experiment went rogue.

Do video games undermine empathy? Or are they just a comfortable scapegoat for a violent culture? Scientists search for an evolutionary reason for art. Spoiler alert: The answer is men and sex. How does widespread surveillance effect art and free expression? The American Reader discusses these questions and more. Tim Parks thinks the Internet is […]

Annalee Newitz, editor-in-chief of io9.com and author of Scatter, Adapt, and Remember: How Humans Will Survive A Mass Extinction, discusses the state of the planet, long-term planning, and the admirable survival instincts of the Lystrosaurus.

Literary history has two sides, I think. One is the normative side: deciding what is good and what is less good. The other is the explanatory side. It’s two very different modalities of thought, and I’ve always been inclined toward the explanatory. That’s what fires my mind. And in the study of the humanities, the […]

What role can a knowledge of scientific concepts play in understanding literature? It comes as no surprise that “biological science remains more-or-less completely un-talked about in English seminar,” as M.M. Owen writes in a piece featured on The Millions, but does this mean that science should be ignored in discussions of literature? According to literary […]

Using a series of timelines that represent increasingly large amounts of time, this blog post puts everything in perspective. Everything. It starts out simple—timelines of the last 24 hours, the last week, and so on—and works its way up through recorded history and human evolution from apes all the way to the existence of the universe. […]

Here is a map to help you visualize human migration over the course of our 200,000 year existence. Using data based on mitochondrial DNA difference, the map models migratory patterns as humans “moved outward from Africa into Asia, and later the Americas, Indonesia and Australia.” The visual distinguishes between land and water or temporary land/ice […]

Fossils found in a South African cave may be “the most plausible known ancestor of archaic and modern humans,” argue the scientists who discovered the bones, citing the combination of apelike and human features in the newfound species—dubbed Australopithecus sediba. Some scientists disagree that the fossils represent a transitional link between the australopithecines and humans, […]

Next time you’re basking in the glory of your ability to reason, thinking that you’re closer to arriving at some sort of ultimate truth, consider this first. Apparently, our reasoning instincts come from a primordial impulse to win arguments, a “hard-wired compulsion to triumph in the debating arena,” or at least that’s the theory. Who […]

A new documentary paints Italy as “a democracy of boobs (in all senses).” How does one “explain the gay” in terms of evolution? (via The Daily Dish) “That’s not what countries think of when they go to war.” Why no one ever cleans up the environmental mess they make after sending their citizens off to […]

The Context Project is seeking to blur the line between industrial design and fine art. It is also totally rad. Yesterday marked the 31st anniversary of the first robot homicide and the 50th of bubble wrap. So watch out I guess. On the convergent evolution of dolphins and bats. Some things you probably didn’t know […]

Business Week suggests some ways in which the Apple Tablet, whatever it ends up being called, could change the world. Hyperbolic? Probably. But I suspect I’ll want one. Hominids might have taken to the oceans a lot earlier than once thought. Vertebrates came on land a bit earlier than once thought as well. Twenty million […]

Look, I know it’s been a long week and you still have one more day to go. Look at these pictures of waves. Everything is going to be ok. Women are evolving. Good Ol Gregor Brown. Cookie cup! Who says the environment can’t be totally delicious? Whimsical bad ass terrifying fun: eagles hunting reindeer!

Lots of fascinating science news this week. Here we go. The IgNobel Prizes were given out last night, and the honored research included a bra that doubles as a gas mask, diamonds made from tequila, and the discovery that an empty beer bottle can cause more damage as a weapon than a full one. And […]

Dr. Wolfgang Enard, head of a team of researchers at the Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology in Leipzig, Germany, announced that genetically engineered mice who have had their FOXP2 gene swapped out for a human one (this gene is believed to play an important role in language) “speak” differently than mice with the regular […]

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Welcome to The Rumpus! We’re thrilled you’re here. At The Rumpus, we’ve got essays, reviews, interviews, music, film, fiction, poetry, and comics. We know how easy it is to find pop culture on the Internet, so we’re here to give you something more challenging, to show you how beautiful things are when you step off the beaten path. The Rumpus is a place where people come to be themselves through their writing, to tell their stories or speak their minds in the most artful and authentic way they know how. We strive to be a platform for marginalized voices and writing that might not find a home elsewhere. We want to shine a light on stories that build bridges, tear down walls, and speak truth to power. What we have in common is a passion for fantastic writing that’s brave, passionate, and true (and sometimes very, very funny).